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Home , Acrocomia, Acrocomia aculeata, Aiphanes, Aiphanes minima, Coccothrinax, Coccothrinax barbadensis

Montgomery Botanical Center Advancing Research, Conservation, and Education through Scientific Collections

Expedition Report Prepared for Lillian Fessenden October 16, 2009

P a l m s o f S t . L u c i a a n d M a rt i n i q u e August 16, 2009-September 2, 2009

Expedition Team

Project Leader: Larry R. Noblick, MBC Palm Biologist [email protected]

Project Team: Chris Sealy, Technician St. Lucia Forestry Department

Andy Peter Ti-Palm,

Pierre-Olivier Albano, President Ti-Palm, Martinique

Roger Graveson, Botanist La Planche Guesthouse, St. Lucia

Hubert Inimod Ti-Palm, Martinique Summary Tues 18 Aug Dr. Larry Noblick, Chris Sealy, Andy Peter, Pierre Olivier Albano, Roger Graveson helped me to rent a car and then we went to Forestry and Hubert Inimod performed palm conservation and research field- to visit with the Directors, Mr. Andrew and Mr. Bob, and visit the work in St. Lucia and Martinique from August 16, 2009-September herbarium. Purchased groceries for my meals at the guesthouse and 2, 2009. This project expanded documentation and understanding prepared for the next day’s trip. of St. Lucia and Martinique’s palm flora, and brought four of palms and one rare Juniper species into protective cultivation at Montgomery Botanical Center in , and at the forestry department in St. Lucia.

Introduction

To add to the diversity of MBC’s collection Dr. Larry Noblick searched St. Lucia and Martinique for barbadensis, Pre- stoea acuminata, Syagrus amara, aculeata, mini- ma, Geonoma interrupta, Euterpe broadwayi, and .

Special efforts were exerted in the search for Syagrus amara, a rare palm located in the lesser antillies. and Eu- terpe broadwayi are interestingly found in and the , but not found on the South American continent Syagrus amara and , St. Lucia. or in (Comeau et al. 2003). Coccothrinax barbaden- sis was found in fruit while in St. Lucia and Martinique. Wed 19 Aug I spent the day with Melvin Smith, a local farmer from the Atlan- During this expedition, Dr. Noblick collected germplasm from five tic coast who works for Roger Graveson and is very knowledgeable species that were known natives of the Lesser Antilles (Hender- about the island and its , and with Chris Sealy, a herbarium son et al. 1995): fruit from , , technician from Forestry, who I would be training during this col- Coccothrinax barbadensis, and Syagrus amara; and cuttings from Juni- lection trip. Since Melvin could only spend one day with us, we col- perus barbadensis. lected at one site, but most of the time we drove around the island so that Melvin could point out to Chris and I where the The 2009 St. Lucia and Martinique Palm Conservation project, best palm collecting sites were. funded by Lillian Fessenden, enabled fieldwork in support of ex situ conservation, and basic botanical research, focused around St. Lucia Thurs 20 Aug and Martinique’s palm flora. After picking up Chris, we returned to the first collecting site along the Atlantic coast to search for more fruiting mother plants of Syagrus Larry Noblick’s Field notes: amara. Just south of Anse La Raye, we collected and a voucher from a local population of Acrocomia aculeata. Sun 16 Aug I left for St. Lucia but the plane was late departing and I missed the On the way back to the Atlantic coast, we stopped off in the For- connecting flight to St. Lucia. I spent the night in San Juan, PR. est Preserve and hiked in to visit Prestoea acuminata, which were only flowering. We continued on to the Atlantic coast just south of Mon 17 Aug Dennery and made a collection of a S. amara population on that side I spent most of the day at the airport waiting for the afternoon flight of the island. We then returned to Forestry so that I could train Chris to St. Lucia. The day was very bad because Tropical Storm Ana was to press the palm vouchers and to start drying them. passing south of the island. I arrived in St. Lucia at 9:30 P.M. and took a taxi to the guesthouse owned by Henry and his friend, Roger Fri 21 Aug Graveson, also a local botanist, in Gros Islet, about a half an hour ride In the process of pressing the material from the day before, we dis- from the airport. covered that we had left part of our collection near Dennery, but

Expedition Report | St. Lucia and Martinique 2009 2 we had to go to that side of the island to visit some plantings of In the afternoon, we visited a population of Coccothrinax barbadensis, the native Coccothrinax barbadensis, so it was not out of our way. C. then Dr. George Pastel’s palm collections near Riviere Pilote, which barbadensis are used extensively in broom making and the over contain over 300 palm species. George guided us to another S. amara collection of these leaves from the wild has severely damaged the local population near Petit Bourg, where I collected fruit. populations on the Atlantic coast. They have begun germinating and cultivating plants from the local populations for brooms and we were able to collect seed from some of these plantings, because the wild populations were struggling just to put on new leaves. On the way back we stopped to see the other form of Prestoea acuminata in the Forest Reserve. We returned to Forestry to put our plants in the dryer.

Sat 22 Aug Left for Martinique today, arrived on the island, was met by Andy Pe- ter, exchanged money, bought groceries, went to my bungalow, went to Andy’s, then to a rendevous point near Trois Ilets to meet up with some palm society members to look for S. amara. We then all drove to a population of S. amara, which I collected. That evening I gave a talk for Ti-Palm, the Palm Society of the Antilles and the . When I got back to my place I pressed the plant material and got to Hubert Inimod and Andy Peter collecting Syagrus amara bed by 1 A.M.

Tues 25 Aug We drove to Morne Rouge and hiked 3 hours with Hubert Inimod and his friend to see Euterpe broadwayi, but it was not flowering or fruiting. In this same forest we saw the upland form of Aiphanes min- ima, which is quite different and Prestoea acuminata. Next we drove to the base of Montagne Pelee, a volcano which last erupted in 1902 and we hiked a heavily eroded dirt road to see Geonoma interrupta, but none had ripe fruit.

Wed 26 Aug I cleaned seed until 11 A.M, then Andy and I drove back to Petit Bourg to collect a voucher collection for the fruit that we had col- lected there with George. We then drove near St. Esprit, where we collected Acrocomia aculeata seed. Finally, we went to Marin to col- Pierre-Olivier Albano with a mermber of Ti-Palm-Martinique traveling by boat to Cap St. Martin (in background). lect seed and a voucher specimen from the Coccothrinax barbadensis population that we had seen a few days before. The whole steep hill- Sun 23 Aug side was covered with a stinging vine that caused both of us consider- We drove to the north side of the island near Grand Riviere and able discomfort for several hours. We had dinner at Pierre-Olivier paid a fisherman to take us to Cap St. Martin to visit a population Albano’s that evening. of S. amara. The seas were rough and I had to jump off into the surf and carry my equipment, food and water to shore. It was a healthy Thurs 27 Aug population, but we found very few seed and collected a voucher. The Cleaned seed the whole day and in the evening had dinner at Andy’s fisherman picked us up at 5:30 P.M. On the way home and just be- with Pierre-Olivier. fore night fall we collected a few fruit of a low-land form of Aiphanes minima growing in a deep ravine just east of Grand Riviere. Fri 28 Aug Returned to St. Lucia, rented a car and drove to Forestry to get my Mon 24 Aug plants in the dryers and to get a key to the herbarium, so I could Andy and I drove to Marin on the SE corner of the island and collect- monitor my plants in the dryer over the weekend. ed S. amara from a steep hillside on the property of Hubert Inimod.

Expedition Report | St. Lucia and Martinique 2009 3 Sat 29 Aug Species seed collected specimens collected Cleaned seed all day and visited Forestry twice to check on the dryer. Acrocomia aculeata 102 1 Aiphanes minima 6 0 Sun 30 Aug Coccothrinax barbadensis 341 1 Cleaned seed until 3 P.M. and went to Forestry twice to check on Juniperus barbadensis 0 15 the dryer. Syagrus amara 246 6

Mon 31 Aug Also, the addition of 15 cuttings of Juniperus barbadensis is very sub- Went to Forestry and started reassembling my dry palm parts into stantial. It is a very rare tropical conifer and is a great addition to our bundles by collecting number. Trained Chris on proper herbarium tropical conifer collection here at MBC. techniques for palms and we were able to economize some herbarium space. By noon, I returned to the guesthouse and worked more on my MBC was also able to invest in capacity building with our local col- seed and protecting the already germinated seed in sphagnum moss. laborators, with regard to techniques for making palm herbarium I donated several of the germinated ones collected from St. Lucia to specimens. Dr. Larry Noblick shared his techniques (developed Forestry. I went back to Forestry just before 4 P.M. to check on the over 20 years) for this specialized botanical work with the rest of the dryer. Project Team.

Acknowledgements

Lillian Fessenden provided generous funding for the current work. Montgomery Botanical is grateful for the collaboration of the project team: Chris Sealy, Andy Peters, and Pierre-Olivier Albano.

We are grateful to the St. Lucia Forest Department’s G. Michael Andrew-Chief Forest Officer for granting permission for this proj- ect (Phytosanitary Certificate #58062) and also for the USDA for permission to import conservation material (USDA Import Permit 37-77491).

References Juniperus barbadensis cones

Comeau, Paul L., Yasmin S. Comeau, and Winston Johnson. 2003. Tues 1 Sep The Palm Book of Trinidad and Tobago including the Lesser Antilles. I packed up all of the palm seed, the dried palm specimens, and the Trinadad and Tobago: International Palm Society. 15 cuttings from three specimens of Juniperus barbadensis. We took all of this material to Agriculture to get a phytosanitary certificate. Henderson, Andrew, Gloria Galeano, and . 1995. The seed and dried material was okay, but the Juniperus cuttings had Field Guide to the Palms of the Americas. Princeton, NJ: Princton to be dipped in insecticide, which I picked up in the afternoon. University Press.

Wed 2 Sep I spent the day returning to Miami via San Juan, PR.

Outcomes/Future Outcomes

The new additions to our collection will add great diversity to the populations grown at MBC. Six new populations of Syagrus amara were added to our collection. MBC now houses plants from four of the five islands in the Lesser Antilles. In the future, MBC would like to collect from the island of Montserrat to have a collection repre- senting the total genetic diversity of Syagrus amara.

Expedition Report | St. Lucia and Martinique 2009 4